The Ephemerist's Notebook: Waiting for Will

I'd tell you where these windows were- but to me it looked like a cottage in the woods

88 Degrees in New York City today. 90% humidity. And we had a tornado in Brooklyn or a hurricane - something... UNUSUAL for this neck of the woods, weather wise. Whatever the reason, I had no plans for the evening and no real desire to head home right after work. Maybe the atmosphere was so... charged... whatever- I needed to move around. So I hopped on the D train and headed for Central Park, no ticket in hand, for the 1st preview performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Delacourt Theater. The first night's performance was cancelled because the director had broken a rib. Obviously "the show must go on" only if all the director's bones are intact- I bet D.W. Griffith would've made them go on...

So I went- reasoning that I would see not much in the way of new or particularly surprising- in my apartment. When I arrived I went straight to the box office, mentally picturing the box office person cheerfully saying "Sure! We just had someone hand in a ticket, in the front row- hope you don't mind..." But when I got there I encountered a slightly less than cheerful (his cheer no doubt dampened by the oppressive humidity and the fact THREE HUNDRED people had probably asked this already..) "Any tickets for tonight?" I asked. His eyes moved heavenward- praying, I thought, for patience - I looked up with him, prayer always a good solution in these situations, and saw the sign reading "Tonight's Performance SOLD OUT" "Sorry" he said (I swear there was true remorse in his voice) "the show is all sold out". I smiled and decided to sit on the bench by the box office and await my first row cancellation. I lucked out in that Judy from my office had brought me a container of Trinidadian Rice and Peas. People walking past with their overpriced concession sandwiches looked enviously at my dinner- which was ok because I was eyeing their tickets and wondering how long they would laugh if I offered to trade.

After I finished my supper I walked around the Delacourt to Gate 1- why not start at the beginning? As I rounded the corner it looked like LOURDES. Wheelchairs and walkers as far as the eye could see (without my glasses...) It seems that Gate 1 is where the Hospital Audiences folks wait to get in. They were definitely ready for a big night at the theater and the healing power of Elizabethan verse. And I watched the crowd. Interesting people attend the theater in the middle of the park, for free. People dedicated enough to the theater and dedicated to NOT spending $75+ dollars for a theater ticket. So they are poor- or thrifty, artsy and trendy but didnt spend a great deal of money on their look. It makes for a pretty, if slightly eccentric intellectual crowd with t-shirts that tend towards "Veni, Vidi, DaVinci" or something like that- as I said- didn't have my glasses on.

A gentleman in white suspenders with hair much too dark to have been a gifted with it at birth walked past me with a sign which read "NEED an extra ticket PLEASE". What a good idea.. and me without a Sharpie. I kept looking for someone with no companion, 2 tickets and a look of lonely desperation. I should've borrowed the guy's sign- I watched him walk past chatting to a family who all had the look of dread that accompanies knowing you did a good thing by giving this guy your extra ticket- without doing the math and realizing you had to spend the next 2 and a half hours sitting with him...

The people-watching was prime. And the view not one that I could have anywhere else, especially not if I went home. When it became painfully obvious I wasn't getting in, I walked to the Turtle Pond and saw that the backstage area of the Delacourt was visible from the dock at the pond. 15 plus years of watching Shakespeare in the Park, I'd never seen it from that angle- or moment- the ten seconds before entering the stage- the equivalent of being at a race as the drivers rev their engines. And the opening lines..

Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
Another moon: but O, methinks, how slow
This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires,
Like to a step-dame or a dowager
Long withering-out a young man's revenue.

I'd seen them- step-dames, dowagers and young men a bit short in the revenue department. And I'd never even gotten in the theater- I just went for a walk.